The government has abandoned plans to use a telephone-based lie detector to catch benefits fiddlers, following criticism by scientists that the technology is no more reliable than tossing a coin.
Analysis of "Voice Risk Analysis" (VRA) software did not conclude it is effective, the Department of Work and Pensions said.
"The …

Oh yes?

"The best plan would be to spend exactly £0.00 on voice scanning technology, but then tell the public that you've implemented it anyway."

I'll bet that would work as well as dummy CCTV cameras, ie not at all.

This was clearly a dumb idea rooted not in the desire to catch more fraudulent claimants, but mainly in saving money. The fact that is was supposed to indentify high risk claimants demonstrates that the plan was to cut down on the number of claims which were investigated.

Dummy CCTVs?

Those seem to work just as well as "working" CCTVs, only without the dubious benefit of function creep into fining littering and missing dog leashes, oh and the "occasional" govermental perving, of course. They do require a lot less gratuitous data retention though. Should be a major cost savings in backups alone. Where's the budget cutter man when you need him?

"Politicians against lying? I thought that was their trade?"

HOW MUCH?!

That really is a painful amount to spend on trials of snakeoil.

How much do we lose to benefit thieves a year anyway? I want to know how long this scheme would have taken to pay for itself, taking into account the cost of the trials and projected cost of a national roll-out, taking into account how effective it was expected to be at categorising people as thief/not-thief and how many claimaints it could be administered to.

Why do I also suspect that these were not so much trials in the sense that a randomised controlled trial is a trial (i.e. able to provide actual answers on whether it worked or not) but a trial in the sense that LET'S DO A THING AND SEE SOME OTHER THING! is a trial?

doesnt work?

Which is nice, since a lot of insurance companies at least claim they use this technology now. They certainly were using it on a tv show which concentrated on the 'fake accident' makers. Even showed us how the voice changed when lying...

Heaven forbid it was just another way for insurers to refuse a claim...

er...

Lie detector technology does not produce any evidence which is admissible in court in the US either. The only way it is used anywhere with any legitimacy is essentially as intimidation and/or to produce possible leads. A failed lie detector test isn't even enough (by itself) to get a warrant to search as house.

Why stop there?

Install the lie detector in every microphone in both houses and especially the party press rooms. Hand the system out to news crews.

Make sure everyone watching or listening can see the result - like a really big red light and loud buzzer on the mic.

Now that I come to think of it - implant it in all top-level politicians. Connected to a contact taser, anally installed. They may switch it of in private but any official word they say will be tested.

After all, the system works and politicians would surely never lie to the public, wouldn't they? So what do they have to fear? Pants on fire?

@jaitch

It's not so much signal degradation on the line that's the issue, it's the plain simple fact that telephones are bandwidth limited to approximiately 4KHz, reduced from around 20KHz for normal human hearing.

There's so much information lost , but it's not a degredation, that loss is designed in from the very start.